This artefact serves the role of showing my small and subtle progress as I slowly began to learn what it meant to pick out rhetorical elements in a text. In other words, it is my small marker that shows that though it seems like I have not learned that much about the analytical process, it is a mark nonetheless that shows my beginning attempts. This serves as my first threshold that I have passed, in my journey towards understanding the art of rhetorically analyzing a text.

Stockton’s usage of situational irony in “The Griffin and the Minor Canon” brings to attention the defining characteristics that separate the main characters in the short story. After seeing as how sending the Minor Canon away has not lured the griffin away, but in fact has appeared to cause him to stay even longer, the villagers begin to fear for their and their children's’ lives as the autumnal equinox approaches, convinced that the griffin’s appetite at his semiannual meal will include the villagers. After their failed attempts to appease the griffin’s appetite, the griffin does not respond favourably and instead tells them that he would not be able to enjoy anything prepared by the villagers, as they are “mean and selfish”, and would only settle for the minor canon, who was “brave, and good, and honest” (Stockton, 52). With this, Stockton introduces a subtle usage of situational irony. Since the griffin and the minor canon have been able to form a bond with each other, the last thing the readers would expect would be for the griffin to want to eat the minor canon. However, this does prove effective in shedding light on the characterization of the characters. Through their behaviors, the Minor Canon is seen as righteous and humble, always wanting to do what is the best for the village in its entirety. The griffin is actually not monster-like but is instead a being that possesses a strong wisdom. Finally, the villagers are the characters who exhibit the most monster-like behavior, despite their human appearances, as they did not hesitate for a moment to send the Minor Canon away or to think twice about the lives of the orphans in the next town as they had planned as an alternative. Through this, Stockton presents the idea that the villagers, and thus people, are dominated by their fears and act irrationally when confronted with a beast with such dangerous attributes, despite its behavior that it exhibits throughout the story. By doing this, he promotes the idea that though things may appear to be unnatural, this does not mean that they are inherently evil.

Stockton also uses the idea of dramatic irony for the purpose of furthering character development. Believing that the griffin will soon become a threat to both their own and their children's’ lives, the villagers quickly send away the Minor Canon, in hopes that it will lure away the Griffin as well. While the reader is aware of this event, the griffin is not and, though it does notice the absence of the Minor Canon, it does not go in search of him. Instead, it takes the role of the Minor Canon, in that it decides to teach the children of the village in his place. The Griffin comments that “it was a shame that everything should suffer on account of the young man’s absence” (Stockton, 48). By keeping the Griffin unaware of the actions that the villagers have imposed upon the Minor Canon, the true behavior of the Griffin is revealed, as a creature who, despite having monster-like traits and is authoritative, is very wise and initiative when it realizes that the town is suffering from the sudden disappearance of the Minor Canon. On another hand, the villagers’ behaviors are also reflected in their selfish and cruel acts towards the Minor Canon. By doing this, Stockton effectively shows the ideas of discrimination, that despite how dangerous and foreign the unnatural creature may seem to be, that it does not necessarily have to be evil.